Event details

Omar M. Dajani is the Carol Olson Professor of International Law at McGeorge School of Law, University of the Pacific. Previously, he served as legal adviser to the Palestinian negotiating team in peace talks with Israel, participating in the summits at Camp David and Taba, and as a political adviser in the office of the UN Special Coordinator for the Middle East Peace Process. He currently serves on (and was inaugural co-chair of) the joint board of A Land for All. He is also Nonresident Senior Adviser at the International Peace Institute and Co-Principal Investigator (with Haim Yacobi) of The Shared Homeland Paradigm: Reimagining Space, Rights, and Partnership in Palestine-Israel. His recent book, Federalism and Decentralization in the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa (co-edited with Aslı Bâli) explores institutional responses to identity conflict and authoritarianism. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University and his J.D. from Yale Law School.
In this lecture, Omar Dajani will explore the relationship between political imagination and institutional design, arguing that meaningful transformation in Palestine-Israel requires envisioning the “far side of the bridge” even amid mass violence and devastation. He will introduce the Shared Homeland Paradigm, a three-year research and policy advocacy project he co-leads, as a framework for rethinking rights, space and partnership in a shared homeland.